


Been Waiting for You

by Kihyunie



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, i can't believe i don't have to tag angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-17 22:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14198904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kihyunie/pseuds/Kihyunie
Summary: Three times Changkyun thinks he found his soulmate and the one time he actually does.





	Been Waiting for You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shitty4eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shitty4eyes/gifts).



 

1.

  
Changkyun is fourteen years old when he gets his mark. The skin on his forearm has been itching for days and he knows what that means. He hasn't been able to sleep well.

  
Every time Changkyun looks at his forearm he feels a weird tingle. What could his soulmate's first words be? He thinks of something like 'I've always been waiting for you' or 'there you are, finally'. Something romantic, like his mum's 'I knew you'd be beautiful.' Or maybe it should be something specific, so it would be easier to find them.

  
But Changkyun's prepared to search. He's ready, even though his mum thinks he's too young. (Like she's one to talk. She got her mark when she was twelve.)

  
And then, out of all places, he's at school when it happens. At lunch, to be precise. His skin tingles warmly and before he can get as much as a glimpse, Jooheon's clutching his arm, reading out loud: 'Shut the fuck up.'

  
Changkyun slaps his hands away and inspects the mark closer, heart in his throat.

It's black, like most of them, and in tight, small, scribbly handwriting. He sort of can't believe it. His whole life he's been waiting for this and this - it's almost a joke. His soulmate doesn't sound like a very nice person. Not at all like some kind of love at first sight thing. But then again, it could be worse, too...

  
Still, Changkyun's disappointed. By the words, by the normalcy of them. They are not special. He knows there are lots of people out there who never find their soulmate and maybe - maybe he'll be one of them.

  
'Jesus, you're such an emo kid,' Jooheon says. 'At least you got your mark.'

  
True, Changkyun figures. Some people never get theirs. Jooheon's scared he won't get one but that doesn't count because he's scared of everything.

  
'I'm not complaining,' Changkyun says.

Maybe he is a little bit, but his heart is still thumping against his collarbones. His soulmate might not be close but they're closer than they were before.

  
And Changkyun's patient. He'll wait. Even for someone who swears at him upon first meeting.

 

2.

  
The thing about the mark is that you don't get just the words. You get a connection because it means both of you are ready. Some people don't get theirs until they're fifty. It's rare in kids, too. And then you stand there, with some words on your skin that may or may not be embarrassing and a connection that is absolutely useless.

  
It lets you kind of feel your soulmate's strongest emotions. It's like a shadow, a copy of a feeling with the printer running out of ink. It's not pain, it's like looking at someone _being_ in pain. You get the idea of what it feels like.

  
That's all this is. An idea.

  
Changkyun's seventeen now and he thinks maybe the whole idea of soulmates is better than actually having one. You get used to them. The mystery dies. There's nothing special anymore. Changkyun can see it in his parents, in their daily fights and annoyed sighs.

  
Just because it's your soulmate, it doesn't mean you get a perfect relationship. Or anything. It doesn't mean forever and everyone's scared that their mark will fade to scar tissue before they meet their soulmate because that means they died. And because you were fated, a part of you dies with them. You can touch the skin of your forearm but you won't feel a thing.

  
There are a lot of downsides to this whole soulmate business, Changkyun thinks. A lot of maybes. It takes a lot of luck or coincidence or fate. Whatever you believe in.

  
Jooheon calls him cynical but it's hard not to be when Jooheon's found his soulmate a week after getting his mark ('Can I call you Joohoney?') when people tell Changkyun his own mark on the daily but it's never _them_.

  
Just today, a girl overheard Changkyun telling someone about Israel and she turned around with a wonderous, 'Shut the fuck up! You lived there?!'

  
And Changkyun kind of wanted her to be his soulmate. She was pretty and nice and curious, but when Changkyun asked her for her mark it was just 'hey'. He thinks that must be worse than his. It could be anyone and what if - what if you miss them? What if you don't realise until they're gone?

  
Anyway, it wasn't her. Changkyun knows he's young and everything but he wants them. He tried being patient and it doesn't work. Every day feels like he's missing out on something. Every time he feels his soulmate's emotions he wonders what they're up to.

  
He wonders if they can feel his annoyance. If they are as eager to find him as he is. What his words to them will be.

  
When Changkyun voices his concerns to Jooheon, he just smirks and says, 'Knowing you, it could be anything.'

 

3.

  
At the age of nineteen, Changkyun has realised just how much shit he talks. He's heard his mark directed at him about a billion times and every time his heart jumps a little less.

  
Like now. There's this guy next to him and Changkyun told him he looks like an elf with those ears and the guy laughed and said it. Just said it and is now looking at Changkyun because Changkyun is staring and hasn't replied.

  
Yes, his heart jumps less, but it still jumps. You never get used to it. You always hope.

  
Changkyun pulls up his sleeve and shows his arm to the guy and then he gives Changkyun the same apologetic look all the others have given him.

  
'Sorry, man,' the guy says. 'But if you want you can still come to my place with me. A good time is a good time.'

  
Changkyun wanted to wait. He wanted his first everything to be with them. Wanted the newness of it all, the meaning. The _it's you or no one._

  
He's waited five years now.

  
'Sure,' Changkyun says and smiles. The guy grins back and takes Changkyun's hand.

Changkyun doesn't ask him for his name and it _is_ a good time but when everything's over Changkyun wonders if his soulmate will be disappointed. Then he wonders if they could feel this and blushes.

 

4.

  
The fourth time it happens, university has changed Changkyun into a bitter man. He's twenty-one but the workload makes him feel like one hundred and then there's all those stupid info events his prof wants him to attend because he's 'one of the smartest in this class'.

  
Changkyun wanted to say if he's not _the_ smartest he won't bother, but he didn't. And now he's sitting here in the lecture hall at seven in the evening and honestly, he's had it for today. There's only so much boredom he can take before he starts going insane. And Hyungwon, who is apparently also one of the smartest kids in class, falls victim.

  
(Changkyun would never have guessed it. Hyungwon is always sleeping in the lectures when he bothers to show up.)

  
'I could make a better PowerPoint than that dude,' Changkyun speak-whispers to Hyungwon, who weakly tries to swat him away. 'How hold is he, five hundred? Damn. Imagine what you could learn in that time -'

  
Someone shushes him from the row behind him but Changkyun doesn't care. He knows he's right and no one's paying attention anyway. The girl in front of him has been playing Candy Crush since the professor came in and Hyungwon's eyes keep falling closed. He's doing everyone a favour, really.

  
'If you had five hundred years to live but could only eat one thing, what would it be?'

  
Hyungwon turns and gives Changkyun his supreme I'm-done-with-you look. 'I feel terrible for your soulmate.'

  
'But they'll _love_ me.'

  
Someone behind Changkyun pokes a pen into his shoulder. Actually, it's more like a stab and Changkyun winces before he turns around to complain.

  
But he doesn't. He just stares.

  
Because whoever just attacked him with simple stationary is simultaneously the most beautiful person Changkyun's ever seen and suddenly he doesn't care about soulmates anymore. He just wants him: the boy with the black hair and sharp eyes, who's looking at him with a stern expression.

  
And then he says, 'Shut the fuck up.'

  
_Please_ , Changkyun thinks, _please let this be him._ It must be him. Changkyun's never felt like this and maybe the boy feels it, too, because he isn't looking quite as stern anymore. Or maybe that's just Changkyun's vision going blurry because the onslaught of everything is overwhelming. His heart's punching the breaths right ouf of his chest as he scrambles for an answer.

  
He has to say something now. And it has to be the right thing but Changkyun - Changkyun can't think -

  
'I'm trying to listen here, so be quiet,' the boy hisses. He doesn't stop looking at Changkyun, though, with those _eyes_ , and Changkyun just says the first thing that comes to mind.

  
'I will if you go out with me.'

  
The guy's jaw drops. Everything about him is so sharp, but his skin looks soft and his expression is, too, when he glances down at Changkyun's arm, then his own, and back up at Changkyun.

  
He pulls his sleeve up and it's there, in Changkyun's handwriting.

  
For a moment they are both quiet and Changkyun can't hear anything but his own escalating heartbeat. This is it. This is him. This is the person he's going to want forever and, looking at him, it's not difficult to believe.

  
'Come outside with me,' Changkyun says breathlessly.

  
'Wh-what? No, I need to pay attention -'

  
'But I'm your - your soulmate.' Changkyun feels giddy saying it. His soulmate. This magical being's soulmate.

  
'Yes! I have the rest of my life to get to know you!'

  
A soulmate who's a huge nerd, apparently. Changkyun gets up anyway and motions for the door. 'Please.'

 

Once he gets out, Changkyun leans against the closest wall and takes a deep breath. It's insane, how life changes in instants. One second, one blink, everything's different. Everything's new. Changkyun feels raw inside, like there's a new piece inside him that still has to get attached to all the others.

But it's good. Changkyun can't remember if he ever felt this good before.

  
The door opens and the boy slips out. On a superficial level, he's is the same height as Changkyun, wears a cream sweater with blue borders and looks like someone who'd make you talk about politics and morals at parties.  
But there's this confidence radiating off of him. This _I know who I am_ kind of thing. He doesn't look as nervous as Changkyun feels about this whole situation.

  
But then the boy smiles and Changkyun feels every bone in his body go soft.

  
'I can't believe my soulmate whose name I don't know makes me skip class,' the boy says.

  
'It's Changkyun. And it's an info event, not class, chill out.'

  
'I'm Kihyun.'

  
Kihyun.

  
'Before you say anything else, what the hell did you do yesterday?' Kihyun asks and crosses his arms. His hands are small, Changkyun notes. Small and gentle looking and Changkyun wants to touch them. 'I thought you were dying.'

  
'What? Oh, that. I stubbed by toe on my desk. Twice.'

  
Kihyun groans. 'Be careful, for God's sake.'

  
Changkyun grins and never wants to stop. 'So what do we do now?'

  
'Ask a lot of questions, I guess.'

They look at each other and laugh a little. It's just so absurd. You know what it will be like because you've seen it happen to others, but it's not the same as when it happens to you. 

Changkyun can't stop looking at Kihyun. At the way his face changes when he smiles. At line of his shoulders that seem so much stronger than Changkyun's. How he goes from hard lines to soft curves in the time it takes him to take Changkyun in. 

  
'Can I kiss you?' Changkyun asks.

  
Kihyun stares and Changkyun can see his own thoughts mirrored on his face: _but we're strangers, but I just found you, what if it's too soon -_

  
'Okay,' Kihyun says. He doesn't look that confident anymore, but he's the one who closes the distance when Changkyun hesitates.

  
So this is what it feels like: it's a plane taking off except you didn't know you were about to fly. It's a carpet being ripped out from beneath your feet and finding better footing, like it always should have been there. It's seeing the sun in spring for the first time, the most natural _I've missed you_ because that's what it is. Natural. Fated. Changkyun's known Kihyun for about two minutes but he doesn't doubt that he'll love him.

  
Not when it already feels like this.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to shitty4eyes, I said I would write something, so I did (◠‿◠✿) it's nothing special and sadly not my best writing, but pls let me know what you people think~
> 
> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ki_jaemjen)


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